Shear strength of cement-treated marine clay under triaxial and plane strain conditions

Abstract

Conventional triaxial compression and unconfined compressive strength tests are the most common testing methods used in the laboratory to determine the shear strength of soil. These tests employ the axisymmetric condition for testing. However, several geotechnical problems in the field can be approximated as plane strain (PS) problems. Hence, testing under PS condition would better represent such field conditions. PS testing has been widely performed on natural soils in the past. However, PS testing on cement-treated clays has not been reported in the literature. This paper attempts to explore the PS behaviour of cement-treated marine clays. A comparison of the strength behaviour of cement-treated clays under PS and triaxial tests has also been presented in this paper.